Day 4 Dental Clinic in Phnom Penh

We actually started our clinic yesterday afternoon.  We returned from the killing field around 11AM just when the bus was arriving from the airport with the rest of the team.  Lunch together; then we travelled to the New Life Church where we held our medical and dental clinic until 6:30PM.

To our surprise, our dental assistants were dental students from Phnom Penh U. Six of them actually; all spoke some English, some were very helpful, others, not so; hmm, just like US dental students!

Nurses triaged about 130 people in the afternoon; around 30 were sent to us for dental work.  Fanny, the dentist from Indonesia, did bring equipment for fillings, so I focused on extractions and Gloria cleanings. 

Gloria working on a patient while grandma holds her instruments

Since this is an urban setting we had quite the gamut of existing dental work and requests for care.  Many badly broken-down teeth, but frequently the patient only wanted a “scaling”, or cleaning.  As all good dental students, they wanted me to do all the work requested by the patient, but it was my job to only do what was most necessary to control pain and infection.  So, many teeth were removed, a few teeth were filled, and Gloria kept busy “scaling”!

Today we traveled to a rural orphanage for a full day of clinic.  We saw both the orphans and villagers.  Unfortunately many of the orphans had horrible teeth.  Not infrequently if they had only baby teeth, ALL of the teeth in the mouth were decayed to the gumline.  Usually they would have one tooth hurting them, so we pulled that one only.  So sad.

 

         One example of many

Today, we kept the dental students busy.  Frequently, I would loosen the tooth, then let them finish the job.  They also started doing fillings with Dr. Fanny.  I believe they preferred that; less bloody and stressful. 

They did keep me busy when they couldn’t get someone numb, couldn’t get a tooth to budge, or worst of all, broke a tooth off so I had to go after the root tips.  That is a challenge when you can’t lay the patient back, with no water,  or suction, or a drill, and keeping the dogs away.  Just patience, sweat and a prayer.  I did get them all out though!

This is a typical setup.  A dental student holding the patient’s head, another with the instrument  tray and I am doing the heavy lifting

This is our classic set up for instruments.

One of the children after Gloria extracted an abscessed tooth

Tomorrow is an 8 hour bus ride to northern Cambodia, just below the Thai border, then we will have daily clinics at orphanages as we work our way south back to Phnom Penh.